Barring ironic mention that Thatgamecompany's games are about as intellectually stimulating as boiling ramen

Ha ha, brilliant! I loved Flower, but it was a love that manifested itself in some inchoate feelings and while there was some mental stimulation, it was far from intellectual.

I dunno guys, I have played some decent games this year. I am Alive made me think, a little. To the Moon was all sentiment, but delivered and underpinned with a lot of intellectual depth - it's about 4 hours long, you should check it out although be warned - it is not a game. STALKER SOC was pretty stimulating, in that it gave us a world where both the landscape and the in-game factions mirrored the rapaciousness of communism in the latter-day Soviet state, never mind being an outstanding and accessible reaction to the massive physical and mental footprint that the Chernobyl incident left behind.

On the other side of the coin, games that try and achieve something more are often pilloried and condemned - look at Dear Esther and The Path for recent examples. Funnily enough Journey escaped this opprobrium, instead being greeted with massive acclaim, perhaps because at heart it's a platformer with a hackneyed rebirth myth tacked on.

PS Totally agree with this, it's getting silly now:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Li-Ion

Only few presented a tangible moral dilemma that was worth considering before making a decision. Decisions in video games are too often horribly binary.